Motor1 sat down with Honda Racing president David Salters and VP Kelvin Fu to find out how IndyCar know-how helps encourage street vehicles.
The a centesimal Indianapolis 500 was a giant deal. It marked the primary win for driver Felix Roseqvist, a brand new document set for many laps across the monitor by driver Helio Castroneves, and resulted within the closest-ever end within the race’s historical past. However other than Felix strolling away with the trophy, there was one other winner: Honda.
Honda has offered engines and know-how to IndyCar for many years, being one of many solely two producers to take action. And regardless of the racing wing of Honda seemingly having nothing to do with the Passports and Civics we see on the street, plenty of what makes these IndyCars carry out so effectively does truly trickle down into Honda’s passenger vehicles.
Earlier than the race, we sat down with Honda Racing Company (HRC) president David Salters and vp Kelvin Fu to debate the method.
2026 Indy 500
The very first thing to learn about how completely different applied sciences are distributed throughout Honda’s manufacturers is the Honda Technical Discussion board. Annually, the completely different branches of Honda—sure, even HondaJet—all meet as much as talk about what they’ve been as much as, and the potential functions for various items of tech. David Salters explains:
‘So final yr, it was hybrid, and folks had been choosing up on issues that we have discovered right here by way of vitality administration, by way of the right way to use the hybrid, et cetera.’
The give attention to hybridization for the Honda manufacturers is essential. Regardless of the $9 billion misstep within the model’s EV funding, Honda has been an early and quick adopter of hybrid applied sciences, one thing that exhibits up within the engines they provide to IndyCar.
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For instance, Honda’s IndyCars use supercapacitors, a know-how that, whereas frequent on fashionable race vehicles, has but to hit the patron facet the identical approach. In line with HRC US Vice President Kelvin Fu, speaking about these applied sciences to completely different wings of Honda, in addition to shoppers, is an effective way to gauge curiosity from all events.
‘It makes individuals assume. I believe individuals are at all times going, ‘Oh, supercompacitors. That was attention-grabbing.’ They need to study extra about it, whether or not it exhibits up subsequent yr, 2 years, 5 years.’
2026 Indy 500
The most important similarity between Honda’s racing vehicles and what we see on the street is the software program. “Bear in mind, a racing automotive is a software-defined automobile,” says Salters. He talks about how Honda can go in and alter and create its personal code to change sure elements of the hybrid system, one thing that’s key in high-performance functions just like the Indianapolis 500.
‘However how we cope with vitality, simulation, all that kind of stuff. It is all been run on a software-defined automobile. There have been software-defined autos for 30 years. So, that is the place a few of the studying comes from.’
Lastly, Honda Racing makes use of instruments like simulators and wind tunnels to check out completely different applied sciences, together with the aforementioned hybrid system, for the very best outcomes. Fu says there is no such thing as a direct path to a chunk of code within the engine of an IndyCar ending up in a Civic, however Honda’s completely different segments working collectively and sharing know-how allows sooner adaptability.
‘I am positive there have been applied sciences and information has handed forwards and backwards. Hopefully, it is simply inviting itself on the manufacturing facet.’
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Salters says the hot button is having information “handed forwards and backwards” from completely different engineers, in addition to from these within the massive workplace in Japan. And whereas we have no idea how lengthy it takes for sure items of know-how to go from the racing to manufacturing facet, possibly we’ll see the identical sort of high-performance hybrid system within the subsequent Kind R.
In all probability not, however we will solely hope.
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